Lecture 4 word structure and word formation

The questions under consideration

1. Morpheme. Allomorph

2. Word Structure

3. Immediate Constituents Analysis

4. Affixation

5. Conversion

6. Word-Composition

6.1. Properties of compounds

7. Other Types of Word Formation

TEST 4

Answer these questions.

1. What is word-formation? How is word-formation classified?

2. How do you distinguish between a morpheme and a word?

3. Morphemes; types of morphemes. Structural types of words in English.

4. Using dictionaries find out the allormorphs in the word clusters of the lexemes admire, estimate, demonstrate.

5. Divide the following words into parts putting a slant line (/) at the point of division. Explain how the parts produce the total meaning.

impolite subordinate antipode

bibliophile transmission pseudonym

intervene verify essence

environment excess nominee

6. Affixation. Classifications of affixes.

7. Look up in a dictionary the meaning of the following suffixes, give examples:

1. noun-forming suffixes: -er, -ness, -hood, -ence, -ism, -dom, -ment, -ity;

2. adjective-forming suffixes: -less, -like, -ish, -ed, -ful, -able;

3. verb-forming suffixes: -en, -ize, -ify.

8. List most common Latin affixes and define their probable meanings. Suffix or Prefix Meaning Examples

9. What prefixes would be used with the following words to make them negative?

organized able perfect accessible

professional social normal sincere

important ^Joyal regular patient

10. Fill in the chart, analyze how different suffixes added to the same base change the meaning of the word.

Noun	Adjective	i Person	Verb	Adverb
organization	organized	organizer	organize
	disabled
		employer
			predict
	intelligent
difference

11. What is conversion? Semantic groups of converted lexical units.

12. Composition. Give examples of different types of composition.

13. Ways of forming compounds.

14. Classifications of compound words.

15. What is back-formation?

16. What is abbreviation, clipping, blending?

17. Use nouns based on two-word verbs:

1) The machinery might break down. There was a in the

machinery.

2. The people cry out against high taxes. There was a loud

3. Sales will drop off. There will be a in sales.

4. They often get together. They had a with their friends.

5. Don't mix up the price tags. A could be serious.

6. The driver needed to speed up. The was sudden.

7. Good friends stand by one another. You are my old .

8. The plane will soon take off. The was smooth.

9. John will write up his lessons. His is two pages long.

18. Analyze the following lexical units according to their structure:

computerize	nobody
moneywise	giver-away
computaholic	agribusiness
braindrain	biotechnology
take-in	psychology
good-for-nothing	technophobia
skinhead	brunch
Eurovision	megalomaniac
helter-skelter	finger-wringer
burger	CD
HMO	dilly-dally
snow-surfing	couch potato
ecofriendly	sound-bites
nevertheless	hitch-hike .
Xmas	snacketeria
hijack	proof-read
counsellor	irritation
panorama	splashdown

KEY TERM

morpheme composition

free vs. bound derivation

allomorph conversion

base blending

root clipping

affix back-formation

paradigm productivity

endocentric exocentric

Word-formation is the branch of lexicology that studies the derivative structure of existing words and the patterns on which a language builds new words. It is a certain principle of classification of lexicon and one of the main ways of enriching the vocabulary.

Most English vocabulary arises by making new lexemes out of old ones — either by adding an affix to previously existing forms, altering their word class, or combining them to produce compounds.

Like any other linguistic phenomenon word-formation may be studied from two angles — synchronically and diachronically: synchronically we investigate the existing system of the types of word-formation while diachronically we are concerned with the history of word-formation.

There are cases in the history of the English language when a structurally more complex word served as the original element from which a simpler word was derived. Those are cases of the process called back-formation or disaffixation. Compare: beggar — to beg, editor — to edit, teacher — to teach, singer — to sing, crashlanding — to crashland, brainstorming — to brainstorm, burglar — to burgle, legislator — to legislate, a diplomat — to diplome.

In Modern English lots of compounds have been coined in such a way, for example: to vacuumclean, to housewarm, to stagemanage. The fact that historically the verbs to beg, to edit, etc. were derived from the corresponding agent-nouns is of no synchronous relevance. While analyzing and describing word-formation synchronically it is necessaryto determine the position of these patterns and their constituents within the structural-semantic system of the language as a whole.